Weeping and Writing--What Makes Me Cry When Writing

An Interview with author Douglas Bond

Written by Robert Treskillard on December 28th, 2013 @ 12:51:00 pm    (46292 views)

As part of a previous contest, I interviewed award winning author Douglas Bond, and wanted to re-post the interview here for all my loyal blog readers.
This is a great pleasure for me, because Doug and I met at the 2009 Reformation Day Faire up in Peoria, IL. Doug was speaking on the life of John Calvin, and our family was blessed through his gifted teaching and books. We’ve been able to see each other three times since then: twice at conferences in St. Louis, and then again when I flew out to Seattle for the ALA Mid-winter for a book signing.
Another fun detail is that Doug and his wife are great friends with a couple that my wife and I used to work with up in Twin Cities, Rick & Lisa Demass.
So, now for the interview!
TRESKILLARD: At what age did you realize you wanted to write? And if I may ask, what was the first creative thing you remember writing?
BOND: I’m not one of those guys who had a passion for writing from my training-wheel days. Not me! In high school I did everything I could to get out of writing–hated it. Writing was too much work. In Journalism class I signed up to be the photographer in large part so I could ditch out of writing articles. Sorry to disappoint readers who are young, passionate, aspiring writers. You’ll probably chuck my books out the window now.
So, all that to say, I’m a late bloomer as a writer. In college, however, I was asked to write an article for the college newsletter. Meanwhile, I was reading Spurgeon and being fascinated with his command of words. I really enjoyed writing that article (truth be told, it probably was terrible, full of fragments, split infinitives, and pedantic ugliness).
Later in graduate school I found that I absolutely loved doing the research and then writing my master’s thesis (it was supposed to be in the 35 page-ish range; mine wound down at 118 pages). Next I began writing some articles for magazines, ones that paid me for their right to publish the articles. That was fun. Shortly after that I began secretly working on writing fiction; I would slink around like a housebreaker, concealing what I’d attempted to write from prying eyes, terrified that sometime, somewhere, someone would find me out.
TRESKILLARD: Far from chucking your boots out the window, they’ll probably be bronzed one day, Douglas … you bloomed at just the right time! So, for question two, which authors, including Spurgeon, have had the strongest influences on your writing?
BOND: I know it seems almost cliche to admit it, but the imaginative works of C. S. Lewis have probably done more to inspire me than any other single author. I have also found great inspiration in the historical fiction of Rosemary Sutcliff, the Swallows and Amazons of Arthur Ransome, Flannery O’Conner, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, Dickens (especially his Great Expectations). I would follow that line-up with the disclaimer that I don’t attempt to write like any one of them, though their works have significantly helped in the on-going process of finding my voice as an author.
TRESKILLARD: That’s quite a lineup of influences, and good company to be in. For the next question, what’s your view on e-books and the new publishing revolution? Are there any self-published e-book plans in your future?
BOND: E-books and the publishing revolution. I love books. My living room, front hall, dining room, bedrooms–every room in my house has books, lots of books, in them, old leather bound ones, new releases, and almost everything in between. I’m conservative by nature and the quintessential tech-tard, so put that together and you might expect me to be a teeth-champing opponent of e-books and the rest. But to be so would be akin to the Renaissance collector of ancient manuscripts setting up a picket line in front of Johann Gutenberg’s house in Mainz, Germany and chanting, “Moveable-type printing–it’s a sin. Move it to the recycle bin!”

Has electronic media changed the way we read and how we process information, maybe even how our imaginations work? I think it has, and not all for the good, I fear. Nevertheless, I don’t see how opposing e-books will solve the real problems. My wife was the first to get a kindle, and even I, techno meat head that I am, have read a few books on my ipad (especially when traveling and doing research abroad).
At the end of the day, however, curling up in front of the fire on a blustery evening, cup of Earl Grey in hand, Bach’s Orchestral overtures playing in the background, and reading a book–a real one, with pages made from trees–will always for me trump the sterility of the touch screen.
TRESKILLARD: Amen! And I love that mock picket-line chant in front of Johann’s house … hilarious! Next up is a question that I don’t intend to be morbid, but rather hopeful. How would you finish the following sentence?
At the end of my life, I want people to remember me and my writing as…?
BOND: Compelling, authentic fiction that when all was said and done left the reader enthralled with Jesus Christ; “I must decrease; he must increase.”
TRESKILLARD: So … If you could have dinner with three people, living or dead, who would they be? And, knowing you, I must also ask the follow-up question of what would you have for dinner?
BOND: That’s a tough question because there are so many I would love to sit down with over a delicious meal and talk and talk and talk. My first would be John Bunyan and his wife (and my wife, of course). I can just picture us sitting around a plank trestle table, wooden trenchers of coarse peasant fare, honey mead to wash it down with, and talking about Pilgrim’s Progress, of course, but I would want to ask him more about his book, The Mystery of Law and Grace Unfolded.

And then a meal with C. S. Lewis and Joy (and my wife, of course) at the Eagle & Child in Oxford (where I have eaten a number of times, but never with Lewis, though reading aloud from his books to some of my students after the meal). We would have steak and ale pie, he and Joy drinking beer, my wife and I, cider (Thatcher’s Gold, if you please), and talking about the change I have observed in his theology of free will from Screwtape (1942) to Magician’s Nephew and Silver Chair (both penned more than a decade later). And I would want to find out just what he disliked so much about most hymns (though I expect being in heaven since 1963 has changed all that). My wife would want to chat with Joy about her knitting, and I think Lewis would not think this unimportant in the slightest–and he would be absolutely right.
I think I would like to sit down with John Knox and his wife at Trunk Close on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, five children bustling about the place, my dear wife at my side, of course. We would be eating haggis, nips, and tatties, and drinking a Rhone wine he brought over from his time in Geneva. I would want to ask him what he wishes he would have done more of and what he wishes he had not wasted his time doing at all (I suspect, not being from the modern world, he would not entirely understand the second part of this question).
TRESKILLARD: Very fascinating! I had at first envisioned one meal with all three together, but of course three different meals, each appropriate to the time and person, is much more fun … and having it a family meal and discussion adds so much as well. Thank you for those details—I almost felt like I was watching it all happen. And speaking of watching … what’s this I hear about a DUNCAN’S WAR movie in the works? This is REALLY exciting, and I must know more, so fill us in!
Bond: I have gone from excited to cringing over one of my books being turned into a movie. It has been a roller coaster for me. So often when I go to see a movie based on a book I’ve read, the movie disappoints me. And I don’t want that to happen with Duncan’s War. And I especially don’t want the substance to be tampered with in any way; let’s not turn Sandy M’Kethe into a hand-wringing 90s parent. The guys spearheading this movie project won’t do that.

There’s still lots of hoops to pass through for Duncan to go from playacting in the opening scene of the book to actually being playacted in a real movie. But these guys (Phillip Moses, Producer/Director, and James Chung, Art Director, etc.) feel the same way I do about that. Nobody wants to do a lousy movie flop of this book. You’ve heard what John le Carre is supposed to have said, “Watching your book be turned into a movie is like watching your oxen be turned into bullion cubes.” Hence my cringing.

But all that said, they are in the “development and packaging” stage of creating this movie. I’m learning all kinds of new terminology from these guys. And the soft launch at the AFM convention in LA went far better than either Phillip or James anticipated. They were meeting with potential distributors and financiers who seemed very impressed with the grass-roots enthusiasm for Duncan’s War becoming a big-screen film. Over 1,100 likes and lots of people talking about on the fb page (https://www.facebook.com/DuncansWar), and all in about 4 days time. Now they need some deep pockets to make it a reality. Finally, all of this is in the Lord’s able and wise hands, and there’s no better place for me to rest either.

TRESKILLARD: It’s certainly a scary and exciting thing to have this happen … may this process be more like giving juicy steaks that feed hungry souls! So, with the potential for a Scottish movie in the works, it is quite appropriate to ask the next question … If you had to choose one place to live other than Tacoma, where would it be? Britain, Scotland, France, Switzerland, or _________? You’ve written about so many places that I won’t venture to guess the answer.
BOND: That is a good one. Before I answer, I want to pause and think of the line of poetry from Anna Waring, the Welsh poet and hymn writer, “Content to fill a little space if Thou be glorified.” I love traveling. I find it so stimulating to my imagination, and I especially love writing on location. While researching for Hammer of the Huguenots, I wrote in a huge cavern high up in the Cevennes in the south of France where as many as 900 Huguenots would gather in secret to worship the Savior. I sat there in the dark with my iPad and wrote what I was hearing, smelling, feeling, and what it must have been like filled with fugitive worshipers of King Jesus. So right now, I’d say I would want to live with my family in La Roque sur-Ceze, a tiny medieval village in the south of France, near where Huguenots lived and worshiped, suffered and died in the 16th century.

But I really do want to live in a little space where I can glorify the Savior–and after being away I always love coming home to my little corner in the Pacific Northwest.
TRESKILLARD: Your travels definitely add a sense of realism to your novels, and I can’t wait to read that cave scene! Do you have a favorite piece of writing (novel, non-fiction book, short-story, article, poem, or hymn) that you’d like to tell us about?

BOND: I wrote the initial draft of this scene at the early end of my research for Hammer of the Huguenots while sitting in the square around the village fountain at the coastal town of La Ciotat. At that point I wasn’t sure where it would fit in the big story; only later did it find its place near the end of the novel.

Caught

Philippe had never felt thirst like this. Burning and constricting so intense that he feared it was irrecoverable. He had halted, and almost collapsed at the village square in the town of Tillac near Navarre. At that particular moment he was so thirsty, hungry, and exhausted, he little cared if the enemy rode into the village and he was discovered.
He listened to the chuckling of the fountain, a massive stone bath, the water poised on the rim, here and there trickling over in rivulets that filled a narrow moat surrounding the entire structure. Four grinning stone dolphins spewed an unrelenting stream of water from their mouths, dribbles of it falling from their rigid lower lips.
Fountains worked like magnets, thought Philippe, drawing all living things to themselves. No one had to tell creatures to come to fountains. It seemed as natural as breathing to find refreshment in their cool waters. His horse had buried its mouth in the fountain and was breathing in great gulps of water.
Not only horses but all creatures knew what to do at fountains, including pigeons. Pigeons cooed softly from window sills, tile roofs, and the stone niches of the tall narrow arched windows of the parish church. In a flurry of clapping wings and contented squeaks, the gray and white feathered birds descended to the rim of the fountain, there to plunge their heads in the cool water for a refreshing drink. Not satisfied with a mere drink, several of them dipped and bobbed until they had drenched themselves entirely in the cool water. One flew to the top of the fountain, a large round stone capital that reminded Philippe of a cannon ball, there to dry its feathers in the sun. Philippe wiped droplets from his face as more of them flew off to their various perches around the square, dripping water from their feet and beaks.
Extending his hands haltingly, Philippe closed his eyes and breathed deeply at the feel of the cool water. For what seemed like weeks, he had had little time to look at his hands, what is more, to wash them. Ladling handfuls of water onto his arms he scrubbed away the layers of caked on dirt and grit and blood. He could recall few things in life that gave him as much pleasure as bathing his hands that day. And then, when his hands were sufficiently clean, he cupped them and breathed in a long cool drink, and another and another. He was on his knees now. Bathing his face and neck, he drank again in deep silence, as if it were a holy activity too sacred for words.
Through louvered shutters high above the little square, women and children—few boys and fewer still men—peered cautiously at the stranger bathing and drinking at their village fountain.

TRESKILLARD: Excellent scene! As a follow-up to that, have you ever found yourself weeping while writing?
BOND: Guilty, big time. The time that first comes to mind (there have been many) is when Sandy M’Kethe was fatally wounded in the rescue in Rebel’s Keep. My father was going through his induction Chemo therapy for AML Leukemia as I was writing the book. He had suffered every complication during six horrific weeks of hospitalization for the mega-doses of chemo they were pumping into his body, with several near-death episodes that brought us to his bedside in the middle of the night. I wrote that scene (I’m starting to choke up recollecting even) with more than verisimilitude informing my imagination; I had just been at my dying father’s side, stroking his brow, holding his hand, praying, singing, comforting and encouraging him with the gospel promises he had taught me. Yes, without apology, I cry like a baby as I write. Which makes it a bit awkward at times. I do a good deal of writing at Collins Memorial Library at the University of Puget Sound near my house. College kids don’t seem to appreciate it when a white-haired dude in his fifties is hunkered over his laptop blubbering like… well, like an old man.
TRESKILLARD: That’s a very powerful example, and I can relate. We really do pour our souls into our writing! For a final question … tell us about the book you are contributing to the giveaway — HAND OF VENGEANCE. Also, do you have anything new in the works? Any secret projects?
BOND: I loved writing this book! Hand of Vengeance, set in 8th century Anglo-Saxon Northern England, is a tale that emerges from the days of the mead hall, the battle axe, and the mounting threat of Viking plunder and pillage along the northern coast of Northumbria. The Lindisfarne Gospels are being crafted an th Venerable Bede is teaching and writing a few mile down the coast. The novel is my first murder mystery–and a tale that explores true biblical romance. Whether you love it or hate it, I doubt that you’ll put it down until the last page. So much enjoyed writing this book.

Today I began writing on my next historical fiction book, set in my backyard–almost literally! I guess it will be sort of a Bond version of some of the favorite frontier stories out there for young adult readers. Mine will have lots of beaver trapping, PNW trading musket shooting, salmon fishing, horses, HMS Beaver steamer for the HBC, small boat sailing, Douglas fir felling, log cabin building, trading and friendship with coastal Indians, frontier tensions between American and British settlers, the Pig War, and the rising storm to the Civil War. A good deal of it set at Fort Nisqually, a short hop from my front door. So no secret about it!
TRESKILLARD: Thank you so much for the interview, Doug. Your new novel sounds like it will be a lot of fun to write … and to read! Any M’Kethe’s involved? Oh wait, that’s another question … this interview might go on forever if I don’t stop.

Salem Radio Network Bond Interview--January 2, 2014

I'll be starting the new year with a Salem Radio Network interview with Janet Mefferd on the nationally syndicated daily talk program, “The Janet Mefferd Show” originating from her flagship station, KWRD-FM, The Word 100.7 FM in Dallas. We'll be chatting about my biography, The Poetic Wonder of Isaac Watts. The interview will air live January 2, 2:00 pm EST. Follow the link to her site to find out how to listen in. 

There is a curious and interesting twist to this interview; Mefferd is the talk show host in the role of whistle blower who accused Mark Driscoll of plagiarism on his latest Tyndale book while interviewing him--on the air, as I understand it. She has since publicly apologized and retracted her accusation, as I understand it. 

Makes me want to go back yet again (and again, and again, and again) to double, triple, quadruple check sources on my non-fiction books. Never too careful.

My Interview With Fellow-Author Morgan Busse

I had a great time interviewing Morgan L. Busse (Author of Follower of the Word Series; 2013 Christy Award and Carol Award finalist) for the Scavenger Hunt (2013) and thought I'd share the interview here on my blog. You will discover all kinds of fascinating things about Morgan's life as a writer, what authors have been her principal influences, challenges and advantages of being a Christian writer, who she would want to sit down with for tea and cake, a peek at one of her favorite passages from her own writing, and much more. Hope you learn lots about Morgan and her writing from our interview together! (To avoid confusion, Morgan is the one with longer hair--and no necktie).


I'd like to get one thing straight in my own mind as we begin our interview together: How do you pronounce your last name? Busse as in like school bus? Busse as in bossy with an oo sound or an uh sound?  Busse as in the way the French pronounce bus? Or some other way I'm missing? And what is the origin of your surname (taking into account that you married into the name, I presume)?

 
It's the first one, school bus, with a long e at the end (Bussee). Yes, I married into this name and I believe my husband said it was German. 




Now that we have that cleared up, tell me a bit about your early interest in writing. At what age did you realize you wanted to write? What was the first creative thing you remember writing? Did you show it to anyone, and if so, how was it received?


 Good Question! When I was a kid, I was chosen to participate in a writing workshop with a local author. Each student in the workshop had to write a story. Mine was about a super hero squirrel, complete with illustrations, including the squirrel in a little red cape. I don't remember how the story was received, but I do remember that squirrel! 




A super hero squirrel--I love it! Tell us about the authors who awakened your interest in reading as a young person (I'm guessing Beatrix Potter and her Squirrel Nutkin, which, incidentally, happened to be CS Lewis's favorite book of hers) and which ones have had the strongest influences on your writing? 



I've loved reading ever since I was a young girl. I read everything from Nancy Drew to Sherlock Holmes to Lord of the Rings to Anne of Green Gables. So I guess you could say all those authors (Carolyn Keene, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and others) awakened my interest in reading. Out of all my early reading, it is J.R.R. Tolkien who has had the strongest influence in my writing. I read everything of his I could get my hands on and loved his world of Middle Earth. It was his books that drew me to fantasy in the first place.

My 8 year old daughter is crazy about Anne of Green Gables; I remember so many wonderful hours reading those books aloud with my eldest daughter (she just turned 25 and is now married--still enthralled with Anne; my mother just visited Avonlea and came home with so many wonderful images and stories from where the Anne books originate). What do you think about e-books and the many changes coming to publishing? Are there any self-published e-book plans in your future?

 My daughter just started reading Anne of Green Gables and loves them as well. It is wonderful to share the books I loved as a child with my children now :)

I'm a practical person. When I started running out of shelf space, my husband bought me a kindle. I wasn't sure if I would like reading from an electronic device rather than holding a book, but once I started, I loved it! I read almost everything now from my iPad.

I guess I don't really have an opinion about the many changes coming to publishing. Change will always happen, whether that is in publishing, music, film, etc... If I can use it (like ebooks, audiobooks, etc...), then I will use it. If not, then I won't. God is bigger than the publishing world. I don't need to be afraid of change. He will do what He is going to do with my writing, whether there are changes or not. I can trust in Him.

I've thought about self publishing, but that a long way off. Right now I am content to write one book at a time and continue with my relationship with Marcher Lord Press. It's about all I can handle while raising my four children :)

I'm this anachronism on the hoof and so have constant grapplings with new technology (as I read my Bible on my iPhone and type my manuscripts on my laptop and iPad; teach and lecture using a Smart board, blog, and do electronic interviews on internet scavenger hunts, you know, old-fashioned things like that). Flannery O'Conner has this great chapter in her book Mystery and Manners on challenges facing Christian writers. What would you say are the challenges you face being a Christian and a writer?



 It is challenging to balance all the roles I fill: wife, mother, writer, and pastor's wife. Sometimes I have to put my writing aside to be a mom. Evenings are spent with my husband instead of writing. There are days where all I can focus on is ministry. And then there are deadlines that mean mommy needs to disappear in her room with her laptop for hours. I am blessed that my family and my church understand that I am a writer and juggle a lot of roles. But it is still a challenge to do each one, and each one well.

The biggest challenge to being a Christian writer is the automatic bias I sometimes face just because I'm a Christian. Everyone writes from their worldview, yet Christians are the only ones who seem to be attacked if they put anything into their writing that remotely looks Christian. I don't let that stop me from writing from the viewpoint of my own beliefs, but it does spur me on to write the best I can and let the story speak for itself. Fiction is a story, not a sermon. And so I treat it as such.
 
 
I so totally agree: Fiction is a story not a sermon (yet the best sermons recognize the power of story, which is after all what the Bible is, a story--just saying). What would you like readers to conclude from your books about your legacy as a writer and as a Christian--after you are dead and buried? Put another way, what will be the reoccurring world view impressions readers will take away from reading your books?



 The two themes of my books are the gospel and what it means to follow God. The human race is broken and filled with darkness, and there is nothing we can do to save ourselves. So God, in His great love, does what we cannot do for ourselves: He sets us free by taking that darkness upon Himself. We are transformed the moment our lives are touched by God. But the path we now follow is not easy. Sometimes God asks us to do hard things, sometimes He is silent, sometimes He seems to have disappeared. Faith is not about blindly following, it is about choosing to follow because you trust the one you follow. This doesn't happen instantly, it is a growing process, with tears and prayers and scrapped knees along the journey.

So well put, Morgan. I've had a lengthy discussion with another author, and based on that discussion, I'd like to play Devil's advocate with you, if I may. Isn't being a Christian author and having gospel objectives in your writing--as you have so articulately described them above--isn't that going to lessen the authenticity of real fiction? Maybe this is the attitude and assumption, the automatic bias, you were referring to earlier. The Hollywood version of C. S. Lewis's life, Shadowlands, has Anthony Hopkins say about his (Lewis's) Narnia fiction, "Is just what it is." There seems to be significant pressure placed on young fiction writers who are Christians to diminish their Christianity, to downplay their world view, to depict graphic violence or sexual situations, or to use swearing or coarse language as as an obligatory way of legitimizing themselves as a real writer. Have you felt any of this pressure and what would you say to a young (or older) author who is a Christian but seems to want no Christian message to be implicit in his or her writing; it just is what it is?   


 Great question, Doug! I actually teach a class about how to incorporate the gospel into your story without preaching. I think we see too many stories where the gospel is spelled out (hence why the authenticity of the story seems to be less than real). You're reading a great story, then all of a sudden there is this salvation moment that seems to come out of nowhere. The problem is, the gospel is not a one time moment, but a lifetime event, from the moment we are conceived (I believe we are born with a sin nature, thus the beginning of our darkness) all the way into eternity. That is why that one salvation scene seems to stick out of the story like a sore thumb.

The gospel needs to be spread out throughout the entire story. Let me give you an example. One of my characters is an assassin (and funny enough, the character is the one almost everyone loves the most). Caleb isn't really evil, but he's definitely not good. He's a man who gets things done, is good at what he does, and enjoys the pleasures his job affords him. However, he is plagued by nightmares where his victims kill him. He knows deep down he will need to pay the price for what he has down and is secretly terrified of his final judgement.Then he meets the Word and realizes the time of his reckoning has come.

This kind of subconscious prodding happens in real life. I can't tell you how many people's testimonies I have heard where God was slowly waking them up to their sin. That's another way to add authenticity to story: read or hear real stories. It doesn't get any real than that! How did people come to God? The stories are as varied as the people themselves.

When the scene between the Word and Caleb finally happens, it's in book 2. The seeds were planted and now Caleb makes a choice, and chooses what the Word offers. He's now going to become this amazing, godly man, right? Wrong. Again, pointing at real life, salvation is like a spark of life that grows over time and changes us. Caleb is still Caleb, but through book 2 and 3 you seem him change (but not sissified, he's still that same get things done, action oriented man).

The gospel, spread out over 3 books, but in an organic way. And that is one character's journey. There are three more characters, including the main character Rowen.

I think another way to have authenticity is to show good people who don't believe. I hate books where there seems to be an "us vs. them' feel, you know, the good guys are Christians and the bad guys aren't. That's not the way it is in real life. I've been some very nice, friendly people who don't believe in God. And I've met people who follow God and are vicious.

As far as swearing, sexual situations, etc... I think that is between the writer, God, and his or her editor. My book is for adults and although I don't have outright swearing or bedroom scenes, you know they are there because people like Caleb (my assassin) don't use words like darn. But there are ways to let the reader know the background and nature of a character without wading through all the darkness. I would also ask why such things need to be added. I personally don't believe in shock value. There needs to be a reason for showing the darker side of life. If not, it should be cut.

Young Christian writers do not need to downplay their worldview; their are many young writers out there who have no problem displaying their worldview within the pages of their stories. But there is a difference between spouting the faith you've learned in Sunday school and the faith you've learned in real life. One is a head knowledge, the other comes from living it. It is the faith that is lived and refined by fire that comes across as most authentic. Strive for that one.

So well put, again! I think there are writers and artists who are Christians but they have accepted the rhetoric of secularism, which essentially tells us, "Not your religion, but mine." And so we contort ourselves to create crossover stories that won't offend secularists (which we'd all be were it not for the extravagant grace of God in Christ), and we then measure the authenticity of our work by how much it is like what unbelievers write or paint or whatever. I think that the insistence that unbelief is the centrist position, the middle way, has done more to intimidate many of us Christians into silence than anything else. And I completely concur, on the other hand, that the superficial token Christian message pasted-in to assuage our conscience so we can get back to what we really want to write about is not only bad fiction, but it is bad theology. I remember reading something Elizabeth Elliot wrote on writing, "Never strive for style; strive for authenticity." There's nothing more real, more authentic that the good news of what Jesus has fully accomplished in the gospel; maybe it's because it is so difficult to depict authentic goodness without sentimentality that we have such a problem here. But your comments on the gospel being integrated into the entire story is the key. Well said.
How about if we change the pace for a bit? If you could sit down with any three people from the past who would they be, why would you choose them, what would you want to talk about with them, and what would you want to eat and drink with them? 


 Hmm, I think I would like to talk to Peter's wife (the apostle Peter), Jeremiah (the prophet), and L. M. Montgomery (author of Anne of Green Gables). Peter's wife because I would love to know what it was like to be married to Peter and be part of the first church. What advice would she give me as a pastor's wife? I would like to ask Jeremiah how did he not lose his faith after serving Israel for 40 years and see nothing earthly for it. And Ms. Montgomery for advice on writing. I think we would all sit down for tea and cake :)


 
Would you be willing to give readers a peek at a favorite description of a person or place or a favorite dialogue exchange from your writing? And then a link to where readers can find out more about your books?




 Here is a passage early on in Daughter of Light where Rowen's power first appears (she finds out later she is a Truthsayer and possesses the ability to see inside the human soul).

Cleon stopped and turned to face her. “You must know why I’ve asked you here.” He stood so close that Rowen had to look up. She could see each dark curly strand around his face. Her heart began to thud inside her chest. Perhaps coming with
Cleon had been a bad idea.

Cleon didn’t wait for her to answer. Instead he placed his hands on her shoulders.

“Cleon, wait.” Rowen took a step back. He was moving too fast—

Cleon moved in close again. “You must realize that not many men in our village would think of bonding with you.” Cleon looked down at her. Rowen could smell the smoke of the smithy on his clothing. “But times have changed. Your father has died—” Rowen scowled at his calloused words— “leaving you all alone. But I can change that.”

He placed a rough, thick hand on her cheek. Rowen turned away. Cleon forced her face back. “I want you to bond withme.” He moved his head down to kiss her. Rowen tried to twist away. Cleon forced her face still and pressed his lips hard down on hers.

Rowen jerked out of his grasp. “Cleon, no!”

His head followed her movement. “I can take care of you, Rowen. And you know no other man will have you.”

“Let go!”

Cleon tightened his grip on her shoulders. Rowen grabbed his wrist and—Time slowed.

A strange sensation rose from deep within her, racing toward her right arm. It surged out where her palm held his wrist.


Here is a link to the first two books in the Follower of the Word series: http://www.marcherlordpress.com/?s=morgan+l+busse&post_type=product




Thanks so much, Morgan L. Busse!
And thanks to you readers.

Author Interview: Another P&R author asked for interview--probing questions

With Sinclair Ferguson in Geneva, 2009

Brock Eastman, another P&R author contacted me a while ago and asked if he could interview me for his blog. He asked a number of good questions that got me thinking and then reflecting on how I began to write, why I keep writing, as well as questions about what I eat or drink when writing and if I listen to music when writing. Fun stuff. Here were his questions and my answers.

 Q: Everyone seems to have a "how I got published" story. What is yours?

It was back in the days before 9/11 when more publishers were accepting unsolicited manuscript submissions. I sent sample chapters and a synopsis of my Mr Pipes and the British Hymn Makers to seven publishers. Eight days later I had a phone call from one of them enthusiastic about the project. A couple of months later I had another publisher call and we chatted for a long time about future book ideas simmering in my imagination. Eleven years later, and somehow, unaccountably, without any childhood burning passion to be an author—I have managed to write a few books (signing my 20^th book contract today, in fact).

 Q: When did you realize you wanted to become a writer?

I always tried to get out of writing when I was in high school. So in journalism class I was the photographer, shooting pictures and working in the darkroom. I tried to make myself indispensible as a photographer in large part so I wouldn’t have to write articles. It just seemed like too much work. Then in college something started to change. I got so I was secretly looking forward to writing those history essays. And then I submitted an article to the college newspaper and started writing more of those. But it would be years later when I was working on my master’s thesis that I began to realize I wanted to do more writing. Then I wrote a few more articles, this time ones that I was getting paid for writing. But there’s a big difference between a 1,500 word article and a 70,000 word book.

My older kids, to whom I regularly read aloud in the evening, began asking me to TELL a story, not just read one. I hemmed and hawed. Then started in on a story of frontier days (not very good, I’m sure, and made up on the fly); it lasted for a month or more. They wanted another, and another. I felt cornered, but there was to be no escaping.

Then one sleepless night in 1999, ideas started cascading about using contemporary fiction as a frame tale in which to explore the lives and poetry of the church’s hymn writers. I sat up in bed, furiously scribbling the ideas on notepaper. And off I went.

 Q: Tell me a little about your books.

I have written primarily fiction for young adult readers, most of which is historical fiction published with P & R Publishing. But I have also managed to write several non-fiction books, biographies with Reformation Trust and Evangelical Press. I call these my big-people books.


 Q: What are some of the strongest influences on your writing (and several other questions combined from the list below, if that’s okay)?

I would need to go back to my childhood to answer this one. My father was a mathematician and engineer, but more importantly, an earnest, godly Christian man, a man who, because of his dyslexia, had a difficult time reading aloud. Nevertheless, he daily read Scripture aloud with us at our family devotions, slow, methodical, one-word-at-a-time slogging it sometimes was. But I came to appreciate deeply his reading because I think it represented just how much attention he was determined to give to every word of that great Book, every jot, every tittle.

Meanwhile, my mother, a college English professor, loved great literature and read aloud to us from Shakespeare and many other classic authors, including Chaucer in Middle English! We loved it. My mom would take us to children’s theater and even adult plays. I’ll never forget, “A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!”

In college I began reading serious theological books, works of the Reformers and Puritans. Honestly looking back on it, I was too often motivated to do this because I thought it made me a big shot, a heady, erudite dude. But, as is God’s kind way with me, he was mercifully feeding me, often in spite of my flawed motives, with important foundational understanding of the nature of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. These truths are the most important influences on my writing, and if they ever cease to be so, may I give my energies to crocheting pot holders. They are also the most important truths that I want my writing to adorn and that I want to make attractive to my readers.

I have been influenced by many great authors, mostly dead ones, but not all dead. Writers of imaginative literature like Lewis, Rosemary Sutcliff, Chesterton, Arthur Ransome, and poets like Donne, Cowper, Rossetti. But always I come back to the great theologian preachers like Spurgeon. If I can borrow from two of my all time favorites (Augustine quoted by Calvin), “I count myself among those who learn as they write and write as they learn.” I regularly read and listen to the best of the not-dead proclaimers of the good news today: Sproul, Ferguson, Piper, Begg, Horton, Tullian T., Driscoll, and others.   

 Q: How do you write? What’s a normal writing day like for you?

I write my fiction after a bike ride or a good walk to a quiet location where I’m not likely to be interrupted. Sometimes that is a dark corner in the library of the university not far from my home. Other times I write in the loafery, a room downstairs that used to be the bedroom of my oldest son. With caution, I also write in the summer in my classroom, especially when writing non-fiction biographies where I need to be near piles of books that don’t pack around real well on my bike. But this can be a problem, because well-meaning colleagues poke their head in for a chat. I’m a social sort of guy so I always like the interaction, however totally it derails my train of thought and sets me back sometimes hours.

 Q: What was your favorite book as a teen?

Maybe Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates and Great Expectations.

 Q: Describe your feelings when you opened the box and saw the first published copies of your very first book?

It was really thrilling to open the box and pull out my first book, that shiny new book called Mr Pipes and the British Hymn Makers—and then to see my name on the cover, but it also carried with it considerable anxiety: will this book only be the proof that I am an utter failure as an author, the badge of my literary ineptitude? We authors, many of us, are miserably insecure, but that’s when I am looking to myself and my skills (real, perceived, or longed-for) and efforts. It is so liberating to refocus my energy and purpose in writing. Stunk and White in the final chapter urge writers to write for an audience of one—themselves. But the Christian author wants to write for an audience of One, Jesus Christ, plus nobody. The best writing results when I disappear—I must decrease; Christ must increase; only then I’m starting to get things right.

 Q: What can you tell us about any future releases you have planned?

There are a few new books of mine scheduled to release in 2012. In May by new biography with Evangelical Press, AUGUSTUS TOPLADY, Debtor to Mercy Alone will be available. In June THE THUNDER, my adult novel on John Knox releases along with my 8^th-century Anglo-Saxon tale, HAND OF VENGEANCE. And in September my biography with Ligonier’s Reformation Trust, THE DOXOLOGICAL GENIUS OF ISAAC WATTS will be available. Just signing a contract for a biography on Girolamo Savonarola, an amazingly passionate, fearless forerunner of the Reformation in decadent Florence, the birthplace of the Renaissance.   

I have several other things in the cooker, both fiction and non-fiction, including a childrens picture book in verse that explores themes from the book of Job

  Q: Coke or Pepsi?

Neither, thank you very much. They upset my stomach, as does—unforgivable as it is to admit this living as close to Seattle as I do—coffee, yuck!

 Q: Soft shell or Hard Shell tacos?

Soft

 Q: Favorite place to vacation?

We love sailing in the San Juan Islands north of us in Washington State. My wife’s favorite city on the planet is Strasbourg, France, and I think I agree with her on this one. Marvelous city with charming old-world sites and lots of church history connections—and good food and drink!

 Q: Favorite season?

Autumn

 Q: Do you have a particular drink or food you consume when you write? Like coco, raspberry tea, animal crackers?

I sometimes munch on trail mix and often drink tea. My all-time favorite tea drink is a London Fog Latte, made with Earl Grey tea. For herb tea I love Licorice spice—yummy and fuels the imagination.

 Q: Do you have a favorite Bible verse?

Too many to narrow it down really, though Psalm 93 and 16 are two of favorite Psalms.

 Q: Favorite pasta dish?

Smoked salmon fettuccine

 Q: Do you listen to music while you write? If so what are some examples?

I am a lover of great music! Just recently listened through Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion, following the libretto with my 8-year-old son. Though that may seem like a stretch to some (and like child abuse to others), he loved it and asked to listen some more after we’d finished it (we played chess some of the time while listening too). But I generally only listen to music in the editing and revision stages of writing and then I’m pretty selective. Then it would be Bach or Handel or maybe even Alison Kraus and some bluegrass to mix things up a bit.

I do, however, intentionally listen to music that is part of the story, as when my protagonist was in Paris with John Paul Jones in Guns of Providence and they heard Haydn’s latest symphony, or when writing about the Anglo-Saxon harp being played with Beowulf in the mead hall in Hand of Vengeance, or when writing about Toplady or Watts and their hymns, or bagpipe music when writing the Crown & Covenant Trilogy (which could be played live by either of my two eldest sons) that sort of thing.